When you write a news story, every bit of information in that story came from someplace. For your story to be credible, your readers must be able to tell where you got all of your information. In other words, you must attribute your information to your sources. Indeed, just about every paragraph should contain some sort of attribution.
When you use sources, you have two choices: you can quote the source directly, or you can paraphrase your source (while still indicating the source of the material). All stories should contain some direct quotation; however, you should be judicious in your selection of the direct quotations, using them to make the story interesting, bring the story to life and add drama and personal voice to the story. Direct quotations can also improve the credibility of news stories.
If you're to become an effective reporter, you need to learn how to quote effectively and how to balance paraphrase and quotation. It's the sort of skill learned best through hands-on practice.
Your first writing assignment will be an in-class interview of a fellow student (who will also interview you). Each of you will ask the other to give one piece of advice to incoming students; you should base that piece of advice on your own experience, and tell a brief story illustrating that advice. Come prepared to class on Tuesday with your advice and illustration already in mind.
After you interview each other, you'll have about 30-45 minutes to write up the story, using both paraphrase and direct quotation from your source. Your writing will be evaluated on how well you follow the guidelines below about quotation and attribution.
When should you quote, and when should you paraphrase?
In general, quotations should be reserved for language that is particularly interesting or lively. Don't overuse direct quotation, because it'll lose its emphasis. But if you have an interviewee with a particularly striking and interesting speaking style, don't hesitate to use a lot of quotation. On the other hand, if your interviewee tends to speak in clichés or platitudes, don't quote those--try to get something more interesting.
Generally, try to keep the quotations short, since paragraphs must be short. If you want to use a long quotation, be sure to follow the rules for proper attribution of long quotations (listed below)
How should you attribute quotations?
Pay VERY careful attention to these rules, and obey them:
1) Do not put the attribution before the quotation; put it after.
For instance, do not write
Allen said, "Quotations
are essential."
Instead, write
"Quotations are
essential," Allen said.
If you're quoting something directly, it's because the language is important. When you put the attribution before the quotation, you're reducing the impact of the quotation.
2) If you have a quotation that goes for more than one sentence, put the attribution after the first complete sentence in the quotation.
For instance, write
"I couldn't believe my eyes," Allen
said. "There were wombats everywhere."
The reason for this rule? You don't want to start with the attribution (for the reason given above), but you also don't want to leave your reader hanging about who's talking. So put the attribution after the first full sentence.
3) If a quotation is longer than two or three sentences, it will probably need to be broken up into more than one paragraph. If you have to break a quotation into more than one paragraph, place the first attribution as mandated in Rule 2. When you reach the point where you must break the paragraph, do NOT put in the "close quotes" mark. Instead, hit the return, put in a quotation mark to indicate that the quotation is continuing, and continue with the quotation. At the end of that paragraph, include another attribution so that we can be sure who is still talking.
For example, say the quotation I gave above is part of a
longer story. You'd write:
"I
couldn't believe my eyes," Allen said. "There were wombats everywhere.
I wanted to run, but I didn't know where to go.
"I didn't realize that a little furry Australian
marsupial could seem that threatening. But then, I'd never been surrounded by
them before," said Allen.
4) I know this next rule goes against everything you were probably taught in grade school. But do not vary your speech attributions: always use "said" unless there is a distinct reason to say something else.
There are several reasons for this rule. First, most other speech attribution tags imply an opinion of some sort; "said" is totally neutral. Also, the repetitious use of "said" makes the speech attributions seem less intrusive.
Go through a story and highlight the attributions, and you'll see what I mean.
Be particularly careful to avoid "according to" (which can seem to imply that you doubt the veracity of the speaker) and "stated" (which should only be used when the quotation is part of a formal statement--and that won't happen very often!).
5) When you first introduce an individual in a story, give the full name and title. Subsequently, refer to the person by last name only (no title). At times, that's going to feel unnatural (such as when you interview a fellow student and want to use a first name--or when you interview a professor and feel compelled to include "Dr." every time). But still, it's a rule; follow it.
Accuracy of Quotation
When you put words in quotation marks, they should be exactly what the person said. Yet it's nearly impossible to quote someone exactly--Read what the AP Stylebook says about quotations in the news, and these two articles: an article on the ethics of quotation and a Cornell University site on quotation use. (Yes, you need to follow the links and read the articles.)
In short, it's not easy to decide exactly how to quote. Certainly you will have to do some judicious editing of random sounds and stuttering. I tend to believe it's permissible to clean up quotations a bit. However, it is NOT permissible to change words in a direct quotation. When in doubt, treat the quotation as a paraphrase.
How do you paraphrase a source?
The rules for journalistic paraphrase are not the same as the rules for academic paraphrase. In academic paraphrase, you must put everything in the quotation entirely into your own words. In journalistic paraphrase, you may be using many of the same words as your source--but unless you are using all of those words, you may be treating it as a paraphrase. In other words, it's not plagiarism if you use some of the phrasing your sources used, as long as you attribute it properly. Indeed, if you're not sure you have the quotation down accurately in your notes, it may be best to treat it as a paraphrase.
Most of your paragraphs will probably be based on paraphrase of a source; be sure to indicate the source, especially in news stories. (As we will see, feature stories will often have a less strict system of attribution, especially when you use narrative structure--but we'll save that for later.) At first, the process of attribution will seem unnatural, but you'll get used to it.
For your second AP Style Quiz:
Read the following entries and prepare to be quizzed on them:
Courtesy titles
Names (including the "see also" references)
Quotations in the news
Guide to punctuation: quotation marks
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Don't forget to read the sections on Notes, Plagiarism, and Unnamed Sources, linked at the top of this section.